ROBERT BIDINOTTO

ON "NARRATIVES"

Sunday, September 17, 2017

As a college freshman way back in 1967, I became enamored of the novels and ideas of Ayn Rand. In the decades since, my writing and speaking has been influenced in profound ways by that late philosopher and novelist's fertile mind and artistic sensibilities. I also held positions in various organizations and publications promoting her work.

During those years, I referred to myself by the name she gave to her philosophy. I was an "Objectivist" and I promoted "Objectivism."

But I no longer use those terms in self-description. Nor am I involved in any Objectivist organizations, publications, or "movements." For anyone interested, I'd like to explain precisely why, and where I now stand. Without getting into complicated specifics, my
essential philosophical ideas have not much changed, as anyone reading my nonfiction or fiction would quickly realize. The Randian influence is deep and unmistakable.However, my views about the
validity, usefulness, and desirability of a formal movement of "individualists" who are organized in ideological groups and hierarchies, which are run and policed by designated "representatives" or "intellectual heirs" (including self-proclaimed
ones), have changed, and radically. In fact, even during the years I was mired within the
"movement," I argued against any such organizational structures,
as being in contradiction with the substance of individualism. (For
example, if you can find a copy, in a recorded lecture, "Organized
Individualism? Building the Objectivist Community.")

Anyone
who takes seriously the lessons of Rand's novel The Fountainhead would have to reject any such
creature as an "organized Objectivist movement." (For those familiar with the novel: Can you imagine its individualist hero, Howard Roark ,
subjugating himself as a "member" or "follower" or even "student of Objectivism"?) For some years, Ayn Rand allowed such an organized movement to be established to promote her philosophy; it was called the Nathaniel Branden Institute. It later imploded disastrously -- ostensibly because of personal issues between herself and its founder, but actually because of the issue of "intellectual representation."

Rand had designated the eponymous head of NBI as her "intellectual heir and representative," her public spokesman and champion -- the supposed embodiment of her ideas. In practice, that meant he was a professional yes-man, required to perfectly reflect and champion her ideas -- not his own. That inevitably proved to be untenable: A philosophy of individualism cannot be promulgated as a dogma. Yet the nature and structure of an organization aiming to perfectly embody somebody's entire philosophy -- to the letter and without deviation -- mandates and encourages dogmatism.

If you read Rand's own
published statements in the immediate wake of the NBI debacle, you'd see
that she learned that lesson explicitly. She wrote that she always
had been dubious about an "organized movement of Objectivists" and never
wished to be the head of one, let alone forced into the role of trying
to police "misrepresentations" of her philosophy. She also -- again
explicitly -- stated she would never again authorize or endorse any such
Objectivist organization. But she was barely cold in her coffin before a new, self-proclaimed "intellectual heir" (never and nowhere
did she ever designate him as such) declared that, with her death, that
restriction no longer applied. He then created an organization, the Ayn Rand Institute, which essentially mirrored the disastrous approach of NBI.I
participated for a long time in a different, competing Objectivist organization, one that
positioned itself as hostile to the notion of any intellectual gurus,
hierarchies, and dogmas. But I still found the core problem had not been
effectively addressed -- because it began with the label of the philosophy itself.

Ayn Rand had developed her personal philosophical system and
slapped a label on it, one in which she also declared a proprietary
interest: "Objectivism." This put her admirers in a moral quandary. Were
only those who agreed with Rand's every significant utterance
"Objectivists"? Or could one call himself an "Objectivist" if he agreed
with most of her philosophical essentials, but disagreed with her on
this or that specific application or inference? And if the latter, where, exactly,
did one draw the lines?

Years (and may I say, lives)
have been wasted in an absurd tug-of-war among individuals and organizations over the "moral right" to use Rand's invented label in self-description. People have built their entire self-esteem (and careers)
upon that "Objectivist" title; upon their "loyalty" to specific utterances and positions
of Rand's (and those of her self-appointed, posthumous interpreters); and
upon whether or not particular notions are "essential" to Objectivism.
The determination of what is and isn't "essential" is completely
arbitrary and subjective, ranging from the utterly dogmatic
("Objectivism is everything and only what Rand wrote and said of a
philosophical nature") to the utterly relativistic (e.g., notions by
various self-proclaimed "Objectivists" who equate that term with moral and political views
Rand herself loathed and denounced).

I saw that the basic error of Rand -- as
an advocate of independent judgment and individualism -- had been to
ascribe a label to her personal philosophy (with all its countless
implications), but then try to limit and restrict its "authorized" use by others...unless they
conformed completely to every dotted "i" and crossed "t" of her own
interpretation. Understandably, she imposed these restrictions about use of the label lest others publicly "misrepresent" her and damage her reputation. Yet this put sincere admirers
in an impossible position: either slavishly nod and parrot Rand's every
utterance, or abandon the label "Objectivist." If the former, then being
an "Objectivist" means being a dogmatist -- which contradicts the
individualist epistemological and moral basis of the philosophy. If the latter, though, then
the only real "Objectivists" are those who abandon the label, in order
to preserve their own intellectual independence and moral integrity.

Absurdly, five decades after they first arose, these debates continue to rage throughout the small and insular Objectivist subculture. Nearly a decade ago, I happily abandoned that subculture and its baggage. At
my age, life had become far too short to remain mired in such
pointless and preposterous preoccupations. To what end? Will the "winners" of the rhetorical battles swell their chests with pride that they -- and only they -- are the
"true Objectivists"? Will that have the slightest substantive impact upon
the course of their lives, let alone upon the course of the world outside their skulls?

Finally, from a personal, practical, and professional standpoint, using the shared label also meant having to constantly, publicly disavow a multitude of idiots and
scoundrels masquerading as "Objectivists," and bizarre notions
advanced as "Objectivism." Sadly, that included some of Rand's own private foibles and erroneous ideas. Like the "Scarlet Letter," the label has become a way for
ideological enemies to employ "guilt by association" smears, linking the decent people using it to odious others, and to their dubious views. I have no
time or interest in answering for the private quirks and weird ideas of total
strangers, with whom I would be lumped by a shared, artificial label, but very
little else.

As a principled individualist, I answer only for myself. (And I use the term "principled individualist" purely descriptively, and not capitalized.)

I
cannot tell you how relieved and liberated I have felt for the past decade to be light years
removed from "the Objectivist movement," and from its unproductive distractions. I remain proud of many things I accomplished during my years of involvement in that movement. But I wasted
way, way too much time myopically mired in a silly, rhetorical tug-of-war
over an unimportant label.

So, I no longer use the label "Objectivist." I neither have nor seek any affiliations or involvement with organs of "the Objectivist movement" -- which is "moving"
nowhere, and which is an oxymoron, if you take seriously the point of The Fountainhead. I leave such petty preoccupations to those with far more years left
to fritter away.

If you wish to label me anything, try my name.

Likewise, if you want to argue with my ideas, try arguing with mine -- not Ayn Rand's, or
Leonard Peikoff's, or David Kelley's, or anyone else you care to name.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Note: I posted this on my Facebook page on July 4, 2016. I neglected to post it here, but I would like to give this message a greater permanence than a passing comment on social media. Here was my message:

I AM TAKING THIS MOMENT to remember and honor what too many have
forgotten: the idea that makes America unique in the history of the
world. That idea -- embedded in our founding documents and defended with
the blood of countless patriots -- is individualism. It is the moral
principle that the individual is an end in himself, and not a
sacrificial pawn of kings, dictators, legislative bodies, "majorities,"
or collective Society itself. And as a moral end -- not a mere means to
the ends of others -- the individual has inviolate rights to his own
life, and to the liberty to peacefully pursue his own happiness. Our
Declaration of Independence celebrated not just an independence of
colonies from another faraway country, but something far more profound:
the independence of the individual from the forcible interference of
others, no matter how great their number or "need."

That was the
revolutionary idea underlying the American Revolution. Never before in
the history of the world had that principle been recognized by any other
nation or group -- which is why the history of the world is one of
chronic, blood-soaked barbarism of man against man. The American
conception of individual rights created the original "safe space": a
moral barrier around each individual, a barrier against the force,
fraud, and coercion of his fellow man. It declared him to be sovereign
within that safe space, as long as he, in turn, did not use force,
fraud, or coercion against others.

This idea -- even grasped and
implemented imperfectly -- led to the creation of the greatest, most
prosperous, most progressive (and I mean that word in its literal sense)
society and economy in the history of the world. It created more
opportunities for more people, higher living standards, and -- yes --
greater happiness than any society anywhere, at any time. America became
a beacon of freedom and hope that beckoned to millions around the
world, millions who uprooted themselves, crossed vast oceans, and came
here with nothing in their pockets -- just for the chance to "make
something of themselves."

America was the home of the self-made
individual. It was a place where anyone could literally make and remake
himself, becoming whatever he wished, without interference. All because
of the principle upon which the nation was established: that the
individual was a moral end in himself.

Barbaric tribalism is the
default position of humanity. It is what happens quite automatically
when the sovereignty of individuals is not respected and enshrined into
law. Gang warfare is what happens when the social barrier to mutual
exploitation -- the principle of individual rights -- is obliterated.

If we are now seeing a horrific, headlong reversion to barbarism --
abroad and here -- it's because generations of "intellectuals," chafing
against legal limitations on their power over unruly individuals, have
declared all-out war on the philosophy of individualism at the heart of
the American project. They have looked at the achievements of
individuals and proclaimed "You didn't build that!" and that "It takes a
village," instead. They have glorified dictatorial philosophies and
praised the thugs that imposed them on their societies. They have
enabled, ignored, and rationalized inhuman savagery against millions of
individuals. They have obliterated the idea that the individual is a
moral end, in order to reduce him to a helpless means to their ends.

On this Independence Day, as we have fun with our friends, eat our hot
dogs, and enjoy our fireworks, can we please pause to remember (if we
were ever taught it) the true nature of the "independence" bequeathed to
us by our ancestors? Can we grasp, if only for a single fleeting, quiet
moment, the moral principle that made America distinctive, and then
great? Can we soberly re-dedicate ourselves to that principle, and --
following the example of those who spilt blood for it -- vow to weave it
anew into the fabric of our society and laws?

If you lack the
self-esteem to do that for yourself, then do it for your spouse, or your
kids. Or in memory of those heroes before us, who gave their lives,
their fortunes, and their sacred honor so that their ungrateful children
could enjoy lives better than their own.

Thursday, July 21, 2016

The Republican Convention is over and, as a force representing a viable philosophic alternative to the Democrats, so is the Republican Party. Hence the double-entendre meaning of "wake" in the title. Let me add this post-mortem to my previous posted commentary about the 2016 election.

What has evolved most for me during this
past year is my understanding of supposed allies on the political right:
which of them are truly individualists who grasp and are committed to
the basic principles undergirding America, and which are simply cultural
tribalists waging war against their perceived cultural enemies.

The common core I see in those social conservatives who don't just
reluctantly tolerate Donald Trump, but wildly enthuse about him, is their
undisguised, gleeful tribalism. For them, the values of individualism,
and their expression in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution are, at best,
the empty fluff of Fourth of July speechifying and talk-show blather. Such principles are not their basic value-priority or core
commitment.

The real question dividing the right today -- and
all along, actually -- has been: Which is absolutely foundational for
you: your commitment to your tribal-cultural affiliations, or your
commitment to the basic principles of America as outlined in those founding
documents?

For a long time, I had been snookered by many who
masqueraded as the latter kind of "constitutional conservatives." Right-wing radio talkers
(with Mark Levin and a precious few others being admirable exceptions), the Fox News
evening lineup, the Drudge and Breitbart websites, et al., have postured for
years, even decades, as principled defenders of the Constitution and
free markets. But the emergence of Donald Trump has exposed these
long-closeted tribalists for what they really are.

They have
thrown every one of their alleged principles overboard in order to support this
crude national statist, among them: their sanctimonious claims to
champion Christian virtues in one's personal life, to stand for property
rights against eminent domain overreach, to support free trade and free
markets, to oppose crony corporatism, to uphold constitutional limits
on government power, to back without reservations the Second Amendment, to
repeal (not "renegotiate") ObamaCare, to repeal (not "renegotiate") the
Iran nuke giveaway, to stand up against Vladimir Putin in Eastern
Europe, and on and on.

Only one election cycle ago, these same "conservatives" were railing mercilessly against those Republican
candidates, including Mitt Romney, who failed to pass muster on even a
handful of these "litmus test" issues. Such candidates were the hated
RINOs, the spineless compromisers, the "sell-outs of our constitutional
principles" who "negotiate" and "cut deals" with the liberal Democrats,
for their own aggrandizement.

But that was four whole
years ago. Things change, right? Now Trump comes along, and what
is his, and their, defining issue?

Tribalism -- specifically, all
those horrible foreigners coming here to infect our Traditional
American Culture and "take away American jobs."

Overnight,
"American Greatness" became equated not with the individualist
ideals of our nation's founding, but with preserving the demographic composition
of the American national tribe. It is now Us against Them -- and all
principles be damned. After all, they argue, who can afford the "luxury"
of fuzzy abstractions when American Culture is under assault?

Thus the stampede of the tribal right into the open arms of Trump -- and
the shocking revelations of the big-name conservatives who are members of
that tribalist gang. We watched them, dumbfounded, as they did an
about-face on issue after issue, on principle after principle -- and then turned against a host of Trump's GOP
rivals who, just four years before, they had extolled as conservative
heroes. But not anymore. Instead, they undercut and bad-mouthed these
candidates at every turn, handing the keys to their media platforms,
24/7, to a sordid creature much farther to the left than Dole, McCain,
Romney, McConnell, and Boehner ever were at their worst.

And in the convention's aftermath, they
are unleashing their greatest wrath upon Ted Cruz -- the solitary
political figure who dared to take on, from the inside and without
hesitation, the very Establishment that these "movement conservatives"
so long pretended to oppose. His mortal sin? His refusal, on principle, to join the rest of the tribe, bow, and then kiss the corrupt billionaire's gaudy ring.

Donald Trump's candidacy has at last
enticed these fakes to venture forth from their closets, cast off their
faux-individualist garb, and stand nakedly exposed as the cultural
collectivists they've been all along.

It has been a sobering
revelation to me just how many of these fair-weather "constitutional
conservatives" and "free enterprisers" are out there -- just how
far our nation has degenerated -- and just how great a distance we must
travel to win it back.

Any political revolution, however, must be preceded by a cultural revolution. And so I now return to doing the what I can on that front: crafting fictional narratives that offer my own vision of the kind of values and virtues a new culture will require.

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Though the 2016 GOP presidential nomination has not yet been settled as of this date, it is looking more and more likely that Donald Trump will become the nominee. This prospect has demoralized many, compelling us to confront difficult decisions about what to do on Election Day.

As I witness the slow, gradual, resigned acceptance within the
Republican Party of Donald Trump (and within the Democrat Party of
criminal Hillary Clinton and socialist Bernie Sanders), by more and more
people -- people who, during a more civilized moment just months ago,
would never have tolerated the likes of such creatures -- I am reminded
how a culture becomes corrupted, then lost.

The late Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan -- a thoughtful, pre-Clintonian Democrat and champion
of Western civilization -- memorably described the process he called
"defining deviancy down." It amounted to slowly lowering the bar of
moral and intellectual standards, of social and cultural expectations,
inch by inch. Pretty soon, what was unthinkable in January and
intolerable in March becomes tolerated in June, then accepted in August
-- and finally celebrated by November.

Why celebrated?

Because in order to accommodate and accept the once-intolerable, a
person must surrender his standards, piecemeal . . . but then rationalize
his self-corruption in his own mind. How better to rationalize the
despicable -- and one's own acceptance of it -- than to turn it into
virtue, and the despicable person into a non-conforming hero?

I want my friends, some of whom are Trump or Hillary supporters, to understand how seriously I take this corruption.

I am not a bandwagon-joiner. I am not one to stick ‪#‎NeverTrump‬
hashtags everywhere. But neither can I tolerate this crude, ignorant,
unprincipled narcissist simply because the alternative would be to vote
for a criminal like Clinton. Trump represents the culmination of a
process of corruption within the Republican Party, just as Hillary
Clinton represents the same within the Democrat Party. To my great
sadness, they have come to symbolize and accurately reflect the
character of an American people who have, for decades, been defining
deviancy down in their own lives and institutions.

I realize that
an election is merely a tactical decision, almost always between
less-than-ideal options. Oftentimes it is a choice for the lesser harm.
But -- and I'm being stone-cold serious -- in a choice between Trump and
Clinton, I have no clue who would cause the greater long-term harm to
America or to my own values and interests. An unprincipled populist
demagogue, whose answer to all problems, foreign and domestic, is an
international trade war -- or a pathological criminal
with a progressive agenda? We're not talking about two characters who
would continue the status quo of steady American decline. We're talking
about two human wrecking balls. Each, in his or her own way, would
accelerate American decline in a host of political, economic, and cultural ways.

The latter is what concerns me most, because it
affects the character of America. As they say, "character is destiny."
While these two bottom-feeders sadly reflect the country's slide into
decadence, a national leader of character might decelerate that decline.
Trump and Clinton would both hasten it.

It might be argued that Trump at
least represents what Ayn Rand would have called "the American sense of
life," which Hillary Clinton and the left despise and hate. But it would be more accurate to say that Trump has hijacked the American sense of life. He has hitched that pro-American spirit to an anti-American policy
agenda, foreign and domestic. He does not stand for constitutionally
limited government, free markets, private property, or individual
rights. He is trying to wed "Americanism" to populist statism, and call
it "conservatism."

That's bad enough on the level of political
philosophy, and it would be disastrous on the policy level. But on the
more-important level of personal character, Trump would bring into the
Oval Office a gutter mentality and behavior, power-hungry narcissism,
crude anti-intellectualism, and a mindless personality cult. Yes,
America has elected and endured presidents who exhibited one or more of
these various ugly traits; however, I cannot recall any single president
who embodied them all.

For
decades, every time the GOP put forth some lousy liberal loser, we individualists and constitutionalists were told to put aside our reservations and support him at the polls. It was just a short-term compromise, they told us, because
we had to beat the Democrat du jour if we hoped for America to survive until the long term, when we might get better candidates. Well, Donald Trump
is the long term that all those short-term, expedient compromises have
brought us to. If he were to be elected, there would be no long-term future for principled individualists to hope for.

On the other hand, a vote for Hillary Clinton
would be a vote for a pathological liar and crook, for an explicit proponent of statism and unlimited government power. And it would be a moral
ratification of her unspeakable betrayal of four brave dead American
patriots in Benghazi. That is intolerable.

Because of these
considerations (and barring last-minute, unexpected, radical
changes of circumstances in an insane year filled with surprises), I've come reluctantly to a decision:

Should the
electoral alternatives sink to a choice between Trump or Clinton, I
shall vote for neither.

I care too much for America's
founders, for those who fought and bled and died for this special
nation, to dishonor their memory and legacy with such a vote.

If our
nation truly has come to this, then I believe the November 2016 election will be
remembered as America's Jonestown -- and I, for one, shall refuse to
participate in moral self-poisoning and political mass suicide.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Perhaps the smartest political observation I've read in a long time
comes from Joel Kotkin, a conservative Democrat and a noted demographer.
In the March 20, 2016 issue of the Orange County Register, he wrote a fertile column about the rise of Donald Trump in the Republican Party. Kotkin's piece was laden with excellent observations, but none so important as this:

Successful political parties unite interests under a broadly shared
policy agenda. The Clinton Democrats may seem ethically challenged,
condescending and bordering on dictatorial, but they share basic
positions on many core issues and a unifying belief in federal power as
the favored instrument for change.

In contrast, the Republican
Party consists of interest groups that so broadly dislike each other
that they share little common ground.

This is a great insight, and it explains pretty much everything that has gone wrong with
our nation politically for the past century.

The Democrats are a
coalition of interest groups held together with a general unifying
ideology: big-government progressivism. The Republicans, by contrast, are a coalition of interest
groups without any single unifying ideology. Historically, their only
basis for unity has been their shared enemies: the Democrats (and
various points in the Democrat agenda). Members of the GOP have little
in common ideologically -- only occasionally overlapping interests (often for diverse reasons), but mostly opposition to specific
Democrats or specific Democrat initiatives and policies (again, for
diverse reasons).

Put another way, there has been no basis for
Republican unity in principle,except perhaps for a strong national defense.
However, on matters of domestic policy, constitutional limitations on government
power, economics, immigration, trade, civil liberties, individual
rights...on just about everything you can name, Republicans are all over the map.
There's no single principle, let alone broader political philosophy,
that holds the party factions together.

Which explains why America has
moved inexorably to the left over the past century, since the first
Progressive Era. You have leftists, represented by the Democratic Party,
who know exactly what kind of a society they want, and why. They have
an underlying worldview, a Narrative, buttressed by academic theories
and rationalizations, and translated into long-term policy goals. By contrast, the
Republicans have none of this, and (perhaps except for Goldwater and
Reagan) they have not had a leader who imposed upon the party, from the top, a
unifying worldview, Narrative, theoretical rationale, or policy goals.

Not that any of this should be a surprise. In fact, I anticipated the party's disintegration in a long 1996 monograph titled The GOP's Foreign
Imports, published by the Institute for Objectivist Studies. In that essay, I observed that "Within the GOP, a philosophical
meltdown is occurring." In words that could have been written today, I described how "the Republican majority in
Congress is paralyzed and adrift, its energy gone, its direction
uncertain." And, foreshadowing the emergence of Trumpism today, I noted: "Meanwhile, the populist/nationalist insurgency of
commentator Pat Buchanan in the GOP presidential primaries impelled his
nervous rivals to compete with him in bashing big business, immigrants,
and imports."

Sound familiar?

I cited an earlier column I'd written, in the January
1995 Freeman, in which I had said: "The GOP stands precariously on deep
philosophical fault lines, and already we're hearing rumblings of coming
tremors that could shatter the...coalition.... Torn by
ideological contradictions, the GOP is coming apart at the seams."

In the monograph, I elaborated:

The party has long maintained a "big tent," sheltering many
opposing ideological factions. Cementing this uneasy alliance weren't
shared premises, but shared enemies.... The primary contest [of 1996],
noted U.S. News & World Report, quickly became "a slugfest over the
ideas and identity of the Republican Party," a battle that "exposed a
network of fissures and fault lines that is dividing the party and
encouraging Democratic hopes of retaining the White House in November."

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

I went on in the monograph to identify a number of warring ideological factions within the GOP.

Warring Philosophical Factions

First were the "pragmatists" -- "the ballast of the Republican Party,"
made up of "unprincipled champions of consensus, convention, and
compromise. Philosophically vacuous but personally ambitious,
pragmatists stand for everything...and nothing." These are most
prominently represented by the members of the party Establishment.

Then were what I described as "anti-individualists." These come in
several varieties. First are the "conservative welfare
statists," who believe in
big, activist, "compassionate" government social programs -- but who (in
contrast to the Dems) promise to distribute and redistribute government goodies on
the cheap. So they don't talk about repealing ObamaCare, for example, but
instead "taking the best parts of it and making them work better." Unlike the unprincipled pragmatists, these Republicans
(the George W. Bush/John Kasich types) are sincere...but they are liberals at heart. Which is why they have been described as "Democrat Lite."

Another variety of
anti-individualists are the "tribalists." I described them as
those who "draw their personal identities from collective affiliations.
They believe there are inherent conflicts of interests among men that
pit their group against all others in a battle for status. This prompts
them to see themselves as victims of powerful elites, group favoritism,
and dark conspiracies.... These 'angry voters' are drawn to divisive
demagogues, from Huey Long to George Wallace to Ross Perot to Pat
Buchanan." (And today, of course, to Donald Trump.)

I further subdivided the
tribalists into two factions. First, "nationalists, [who] believe there
are inherent national, racial, and/or cultural conflicts of interest,"
and who can be found "shouting 'America First!'" because "they see
themselves in a 'cultural war' to preserve our 'national identity' from
foreign and minority influences. They thus reject foreign trade,
treaties, immigration, and racial/ethnic integration." The second
faction are "populists, [who] define themselves not by nation or race,
but by economic class. They believe there's a fixed national economic
pie to be divided, so any gains by others must be at their expense. They
thus see themselves as 'little guys,' exploited by a privileged elite
of bureaucrats, businessmen, and bankers." (Trump deliberately appeals to both factions.)

In addition to the
various sorts of pragmatists and anti-individualists (e.g., conservative welfare statists and tribalists), there is an anti-Enlightenment faction within the GOP: those who reject
the Enlightenment values of reason, individualism, the pursuit of personal
happiness and fulfillment, self-realization, and personal choice --
usually on religious and/or cultural grounds. They (wrongly) identify such
premises with personal subjectivism and moral relativism, and as an antidote, they advocate the subordination and sacrifice of the individual to the
broader society and religious dogma. In short, they promote conservative cultural collectivism. These are
the "social conservatives" who believe that government should impose
Judeo-Christian values on society, by law if necessary, in order to advance social cohesion and keep unruly, self-indulgent individuals in line.

Finally,
the GOP harbors a minority of "individualists...the most intellectual
and principled elements on the Right," consisting of "economic
conservatives and political libertarians, as well as Objectivists."
These are the champions, respectively, of free markets and free trade;
of "constitutional conservatism" and limited government; and of the
Enlightenment worldview of reason and individualism. But today, this principled minority finds itself increasingly marginalized and outnumbered within the GOP. The hostility of the pragmatic Establishment toward "constitutional conservative" Senator Ted Cruz provides one example; the primary results provide another.

A Coalition Shattered

I wrote all
of this in 1996. Twenty years later, nothing has changed -- except that
the 2016 GOP primaries have revealed, with painful finality, that these logically
irreconcilable factions have no rational basis for continued cohesion. At the outset of the primary season, a host of candidates vied for the Republican presidential nomination, representing every shade of pragmatist (Christie, Gilmore, Pataki, Graham, Trump), conservative welfare statist (Kasich), tribalist (the populist/nationalist Trump), religious social conservative (Carson), cultural collectivist (Huckabee, Santorum), constitutional conservative (Cruz, Fiorina, Jindal), libertarian (Paul), and economic conservative (Rubio, Bush, Walker, Perry).

Now, ask yourself what any of these factions have in common. Can
individualists (constitutional conservatives, libertarians, and
Objectivists) make common cause with nationalist or populist tribalists?
Can advocates of reason and individual liberty make common cause with
conservative collectivists? Can anyone from any faction who is serious about his principles make common cause with -- or trust -- the unprincipled pragmatists?

Moreover, with the presidential
nomination of Trump the Tribalist (and unprincipled pragmatist) looming ever more likely, the last pretenses of any principled distinctions between the Republican Party and the Democratic
Party have been obliterated. We are likely to face two competing forms of statism, and two
equally authoritarian and thuggish candidates for our nation's highest office.

Abraham Lincoln
famously said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." During the 2016 election cycle I have
been raising the alarm about the rise of Trumpism in the GOP precisely
because it deprives individualists of any hospitable home in a
viable major party. And also because whether Trump wins or loses, we have
finally, sadly reached my long-predicted crackup of the Republican Party.

So...where do we go from here?

The Path Forward

Our first task is to face and grasp the cause of the problem. The problem is intellectual chaos. In
terms of vision, philosophy, goals, policies -- of Narrative -- the GOP is
everything, and nothing. That's why even with an electoral majority in Congress today (as in the early 1990s), the Republicans cannot
rally around a single alternative to (say) ObamaCare, or a proposed
budget, or a policy to deal with the looming disaster of runaway
entitlement spending, or even a coherent strategy to deal with ISIS. Philosophically divided, the party is paralyzed by
indecision; too many logically incompatible values, principles, and agendas
are clamoring for collective agreement, with each splinter faction trying to impose its own on the others.

That can't happen. Collectivist
decision-making may work for those who embrace collectivism; they are used
to sacrificing individual interests for the sake of the group. But it
emphatically does not work for those who champion individualism, by which the
ultimate evil is sacrificing one's values for the sake of group "harmony." Those who embrace constitutional conservatism, free markets, and individual rights on principle cannot sacrifice their principles and go along with the statist agendas of pragmatists, tribalists, and social conservatives, in the name of "party unity." (The same can be said of sincere, principled social conservatives.)

No, individualist ends can only be advanced by individualist means.

In
my opinion, bright, articulate advocates of principled individualism
who aspire to public office should stop trying to "convert" or "take
over" the Republican Party. That's a fool's errand, a futile waste of
time, and a contradiction: You can't impose individualism on others.Instead, I think they should aim to establish themselves first as champions of individualist principles and values on platforms outside
the party apparatus, before entering politics. Perhaps through the media -- columns, talk shows,
entertainment, public speaking platforms, etc. They should acquire a reputation and public following that way -- independently -- and then enter politics.

Ronald
Reagan achieved public fame first as an actor, then as a public speaker
touring the country. His famous speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964, "A Time for Choosing," established his "brand" as a principled, articulate conservative. So, when he launched his political career, he already
was well-known and well-liked. Because his
brand had been so firmly established, he didn't even bother to go
up through the party ranks. His first run for political office was to
be governor of California -- not for some smaller office. Similar examples of this "independent outsider" strategy could be cited, including
Arnold Schwarzenegger and, yes, Donald Trump. They established attractive brands as individuals first. Then they just marched in and entrenched beachheads within the GOP, pushing aside hostile Establishment
rivals by the sheer numbers and force of their followers.

Those
of us who do not aspire to public office should look to support
qualified, articulate, attractive, principled outsiders who do. (It's
one reason I supported Carly Fiorina early this primary season. I wish that Trump's distracting celebrity presence hadn't obscured her many merits.) A second choice would be political insiders who have demonstrated a long track record of standing firmly on principle against the corrupt Establishment within the system. (It's the reason I currently support Senator Ted Cruz against the tribalist Donald Trump and the conservative welfare statist Governor John Kasich.)

As
for those of us who don't want any direct involvement in politics, but
who still wish to promote the kind of changes that affect politics, I have said
for years that the place to focus is not politics, but culture. Ayn Rand
and Andrew Breitbart were both courageous visionaries, and they both
agreed -- in Breitbart's memorable words -- that "politics is downstream
from culture." What affects culture more directly are stories. Not
think tanks, not college professors, and not the abstract ideas and theories
that flow from either -- but ideas as they are dramatized and romanticized in the
form of narratives.

We urgently need to reclaim
and romanticize the Western Enlightenment/individualist worldview in
popular entertainment. We need the constant celebration of individualist
virtues and values in art. We need to patronize and encourage the good
stuff, not merely fight the bad stuff. Negating negatives is not the same thing as producing positives.

Similarly, we need
to honor, and to defend from attack, those who champion and protect our
basic American institutions. This includes our police and military, our
entrepreneurs and self-made individuals, our great historical leaders
and cultural icons (including America's Founders). We need to extol their virtues as virtues. We need to celebrate their lives, giving them awards and
recognition. Today's kids are tomorrow's leaders, and they need not only fictional models, but real-life exemplars of individualist virtues.But yes, as a corollary to our positive efforts, we do need
to
declare war on today's artistic nihilism, whose toxic influence creates
the sort of morally vacuous, shapeless entities who are fit for nothing
but a
welfare state or a collectivist colony. And yes, as a corollary to creating and defending values, we do need to confront evil's
enablers -- especially its academic, political, and media enablers. We can't remain mute as our culture's values and institutions are under assault.

However, we must always remember that fighting evil is a secondary task. Our
civilization is perishing due to over a century of nihilistic assaults
on its basic philosophical values. That nihilism has created a void, a cultural vacuum. You
don't fight a void; you fill it.

Our primary focus -- as George Washington put it -- must be to "raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair."

Advancing a New Narrative

Note that all of
this has very little to do, at least directly, with the Republican Party: taking it over, deposing its corrupt Establishment, fighting over its
platform provisions at conventions. It has very little to do with politics,
period -- at least not directly. It dwells instead on the task of affecting the culture
that lies upstream from politics.

The left has long understood the importance of "narrative control," which is why they have colonized Hollywood and the arts. As a result of their efforts, we can now throw facts
and logic at people till the cows come home; but because our enemies have shaped
the narratives by which people assimilate and interpret facts, we always lose the arguments. They process everything we say to fit a Core Narrative embedded in their brains, the dominant storyline that guides their lives and
integrates their thoughts.

We need
to take charge of that storyline. We need to advance a new Core
Narrative for our American culture, but one rooted in individualist premises.

We
need to hammer that Narrative home in every venue, using every media, cultural, and
political platform. The Core Narrative of American Individualism needs
to be translated into thousands of specific stories and examples, into
countless variations on its basic themes, and then applied to new contexts in
fresh ways. We need to see it manifested in novels, plays, and movies. We need it in TV shows and historic documentaries and biographies. We need it in video games, and children's picture books, and songs, and poetry.

The Individualist Narrative needs to be romanticized, honored,
championed, and defended. And its enemies need to be challenged,
opposed, mocked, and fought -- just as they have done for over a century
against ours.

This is not primarily a political battle. It is a battle for hearts and minds, over what it means to be human. It is a battle over the nature of our fundamental ideals, values, motives, and purposes.

It is a
cultural war.

But it's not a cultural war whose goals are to be defined and represented solely by
social conservatives versus cultural leftists. It's time that those of us who are
principled individualists march onto the cultural and political battlefields as a third force,
armed with our own Narrative.

Friday, June 26, 2015

There are many unrecognized implications of the June 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing
marriages between (among?) gay and lesbian (couples? groups?). I frame the
ruling in those terms not to disparage loving relationships of any kind, but to
raise a point lost in this ruling: essentially, the unintentional obliteration
of "marriage" as a legal concept. Which is to me a good thing.

Like so many issues in which government (i.e., politics) is
improperly involved -- education, agriculture, energy, housing, charity, etc.,
etc. -- the bitter, divisive social conflicts over "gay marriage"
arise precisely from the very fact of government involvement in defining
"marriage" in the first place. Why?

Because government -- that is, law -- is force and coercion.
Government "solutions" to problems are inherently coercive
impositions by some people (the politically dominant) on others (the politically
subordinate). Such solutions never result in social harmony, peace, love, etc.;
they only exacerbate social hostility, conflict, and division. They allow some
people to "win," but only because they force others to
"lose."

Force children to go to "public" (i.e.,
politically run) schools, and force taxpayers to pay for it? You will then pit
taxpayers against each other over the content of that "education"
(indoctrination), over schedules and hours, over homework, over grading
systems, over teacher qualifications, over social engineering schemes (busing
students all over the place to achieve racially integrated schools, etc.). over
options for dissenters (home schooling, tax credits, vouchers,
"magnet" schools, "charter" schools), over
"reforms" (Common Core), over testing, etc. Everything concerning
education becomes a political battleground...because of the conscription of
children into politicized education, and the conscription of taxpayers to pick up the tab.

Put government into the agriculture business, or energy
business, or auto business, or banking business, or ANY business, and what
happens? You use force (the IRS extracting money from all
taxpayers) to support crony businesses (e.g., politically connected ethanol
agribusinesses, "green" windmill and solar panel manufacturers, GM and
Chrysler, the big New York-based banks) over all their politiically unfavored competitors,
who must fund, through taxes, their politically favored rivals.

Put government into the charity business -- all the
programs of the welfare state -- and you undercut voluntary, private charity
alternatives by sapping them of trillions of dollars of potential funds, which are taxed away from potential contributors. Simultaneously, you create what are called "moral hazards" by
providing incentives for millions of people not to work or to solve their own
problems, but instead to dump their endless claims of ailments, needs, wants, desires,
whims ("Obamaphones"? Really?)onto their hard-working, taxpaying
neighbors. Everyone resents this "spread the wealth around" process: those forced to foot the boundless bills, and
those issuing endless demands of their "rights" -- i.e., their phony
claims of "entitlements" against "society" (which means: their neighbors). In the
redistributionist era -- as 19th century economist Frederic Bastiat famously put it --
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the
expense of everyone else."

All of this stems from trying to use government -- law, politics, force -- to solve essentially personal or social problems. Politics
invariably creates "win-lose" relationships, in which some people benefit but only at the expense of others. For every political beneficiary, there are victims. For every
political winner, there are losers.

Now, let's contrast this world of politics and the
"public sector" with the world of economics and the "private
sector."

Imagine a world in which education were entirely privatized
-- in which schools were like grocery stores, auto dealerships, bookstores, or
any other private companies. No parents would be forced to put their kids into
a school system they didn't like, with teachers they didn't trust, with
curricula they loathed -- or to pay taxes to support such private companies.
Just as you don't have to subsidize your local bookstore, grocery, or Ford
dealer, you wouldn't have to pay for somebody else's school. With all the money you
saved in school taxes, you could afford to send your kids instead to one of many
competing private schools, with teachers you preferred, teaching courses you
decided were most beneficial to your kids' futures. Or, you could homeschool them,
utilizing course material from a host of competing sources, including online
offerings. You would have no reason or motive to fight with politicized school boards and
teachers unions over content, schedules, social-engineering fads, or anything
else -- because you wouldn't be forced to be involved with any educational
company except the one you freely chose. Imagine: No more wars with your
neighbors and fellow taxpayers over textbooks, the teaching of Common Core or
evolution or liberal propaganda or conservative propaganda, over teacher
salaries and hours, over school taxes, over whether the building ought to have
a new gym. You get to pick an educational company for your kids from a host of
competitors, just as you pick your own car, your own grocery store, or your own TV
provider. Ultimately, just as with those other companies, marketplace
competition would determine which educational companies and options succeed. And unlike today's subsidized, bloated public-school monstrosities, those that succeeded would be those that offered the best educational value.

Imagine a world in which government were banned from any involvement
with business -- a separation of Economics and State, for the same reasons that
we have a separation of Church and State. Imagine businesses having to survive
on their own, demonstrating their value to willing, paying customers in a competitive marketplace -- and not
by forcibly extracting subsidies from taxpayers, via their crony relationships
with politicians and bureaucrats. Imagine how much money would remain in your
pocket if we shut down the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and Housing &
Urban Development (just for starters), gave pink slips to their thousands of
meddling bureaucrats, and sent them off to seek productive jobs in the
private sector. Would you care if somebody started a windmill firm or a bank
or an auto company...if you weren't forced to subsidize or patronize it? Would you feel hostility and hatred and anger if your associations with them were not compulsory?

Imagine a world in which you got to keep vastly more of your
own money -- and thus have the means and choice to fund your own preferred charities and
social causes -- rather than being forced, by law, to subsidize (say) Planned
Parenthood abortions, AIDS research rather than (say) cancer or Alzheimer's
research, political agitation by ACORN, the politicking of environmental
activist groups, the healthcare of illegal aliens streaming across unguarded
borders, "voter enrollment" of those same illegals, mosquito
control in Africa, typhoon relief in Bangladesh, "public
broadcasting" and opera houses for upper-middle-class patrons who could easily afford to pay for their own entertainment, and on and on and on,
endlessly. Americans are the most generous people in the world. But they are
tired of being played for suckers, forced to fund the politically connected
champions of "good causes" who get favored treatment by their friends
in court. Does that mutual fleecing further social harmony, peace, love, and
mutual respect?

The governmental (political) realm, run by force and
coercion and taking, necessarily creates "win-lose" relationships. The economic
(private) realm, run by free choice and voluntary association and trade,
necessarily creates "win-win" relationships. Yet for many generations, people have been
conditioned to seek coercive, political "solutions" to every
social problem or personal need -- coercive, political "solutions" that only breed
mutual hostility, disharmony, and hatred.

The "gay marriage" controversy is but the latest example of how social disruption has been manufactured -- not solved -- by
governmental (political) involvement. The entire controversy stems from the fact
that government has been involved in defining what a "marriage" is.

But why? Why is that necessary? And what have been the consequences?

Government, as our Founders proclaimed in the Declaration of
Independence, exists to "secure these rights" to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. Period. Not to solve personal problems or social ills, but to protect individual rights. Not to take sides in disputes, but to be an impartial umpire.

Thus, there is a proper role for government
(law) in recognizing and enforcing private contracts, and also in protecting
individuals in relationships (spouses, children) from violations of their
rights by other parties. But recognition and enforcement of private contracts,
property arrangements, and the rights of spouses and children, do not require
government (i.e., politicians and the force of law) to confer some kind of
"legitimacy" on the ceremonial and symbolic aspects of a
"marriage."

For all the reasons stated above, marriage should be privatized. A "marriage" should be defined and celebrated
by the participants, according to whatever religious or philosophical values
they ascribe to that state of long-term commitment. Politics should play no
role in that determination whatsoever.

But ironically, the Supreme Court's
ruling has -- unintentionally -- pointed us in that direction. Why?

Because (to paraphrase the classic line from the film "The Incredibles") if
everything is a "marriage" under the law, then nothing is. The Court
ruling and reasoning today opens the door not just to same-sex
"marriages," but to polygamy, group marriages, and pretty much
anything else. Who can now say that such arrangements are not "marriages," and on what grounds?

Liberals, wedded to governmental (read: coercive)
"solutions" to all social problems, won't grasp any of this, sadly.
They refuse to realize that their "solutions," rooted in seizing and
wielding political power by themselves over others, cannot ever result in that
woozy, utopian, John Lennon "Imagine" world of peace-and-love.

Liberals, above all, are complete captives to the zero-sum, class-and-racial
warfare, tribal worldview: a social worldview of winners vs. losers, of powerful vs. powerless,
of perpetual gang warfare in which each gang seeks power and advantage over its rivals. Economic ignoramuses -- who
think every economic relationship is about some people taking from others -- liberals
can't even conceive of peaceful, voluntary, trading relationships. They thus
can only interpret free market capitalism through the distorting lens of
"taking," of "exploitation."

Now, with this new Court decision, they will predictably try
to use their new "marital rights" as a bludgeon against private
individuals, businesses, and religious organizations that do not share their own elastic definition of
"marriage." Rather than take this as an opportunity to celebrate live-and-let-live social arrangements, in which everyone can associate voluntarily as they choose, they will instead eagerly try to
use the power of law to force and coerce any private, peaceful individuals who disagree with them to associate and deal with them -- to
bake their wedding cakes, cater their weddings, provide venues for their
ceremonies, even perform their ceremonies. Why?

Because the main thing that "liberals" are
"wedded" to is not some definition of marriage, but to their
zero-sum, tribalist, coercive, us-vs.-them worldview. No, they don't really want peace
and love and harmony: That's just their cover story.

They want power and control over others.

In short: Liberalism is sociopathy, masquerading as a political
doctrine.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

In March 2015, a controversy roiled in Indiana over passage of the state's Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That divisive controversy is
the latest fruit of a terrible legal precedent established during the Civil
Rights era -- which was in turn based on terrible confusion and
misunderstanding of the nature of "rights."

Protestors of the
Indiana law (which in fact mirrors the federal RFRA law and similar laws in 30 states) claim that, by protecting the rights of (say) Christian business owners
not to serve or deal with (say) gays, the RFRA violates the "right" of
the latter to be served by these private businesses, without
discrimination.

But does any such "right" exist? Let me attempt to untangle this mess.

Our individual rights have a moral basis: They are based on the moral
premise that every individual is an end in himself -- not a means to the
ends of others. Rights are moral principles established to
institutionalize that premise as the basis for peaceful social
relationships. Individual rights prohibit one person from living at the
expense of someone else by means of force, fraud, or coercion.

Which brings us to the role of government. The Declaration of
Independence states that the purpose of government is "to secure these
rights" to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Government is
established to protect these rights of individuals from acts
of force, fraud, and coercion by others. And to enforce those protections of
rights, government may use force and coercion only in retaliation
against those who violate the rights of others.

In other words:
Since government is an agency meant to protect the rights of all, and
because it is funded by all, it therefore must afford equal legal
protection to all. As an impartial umpire and protector, it cannot "play
favorites" in its actions without operating unjustly.

To this
end, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did some very good things. In the Act,
the Titles (or sections) numbered I, III-VI, VIII, and IX were aimed at ending discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and similar traits by government bodies, officials, and laws. For many decades before passage of the Act, various government bodies did operate unfairly and prejudicially, especially
against blacks. Such officially sanctioned bigotry and bias was a moral
and legal outrage, and it needed to be put to an end. So, these
particular sections of the Civil Rights Act are rightly celebrated as a boon for the cause of
individual rights.

However, Titles II and VII of the Civil
Rights Act took matters a step too far. They banned owners of private property from exercising their own individual rights of freedom of
association on and with that property. In other words, those sections
violated an individual's right to choose his own associations, and on
his own property, for whatever reasons (rational or irrational).

To repeat: The basic premise underlying and justifying government and
law is that each individual is an end in himself, not a means to the
ends of others. But that very premise -- which demands that government
act neutrally and impartially toward all -- also protects the right of
individuals in the private sector to associate freely with whomever they
wish, for whatever reason they wish. Those reasons don't have to be
admirable. Let me be clear: I think that discrimination based solely on race or sexual
orientation is disgraceful and stupid. However, it is an individual right to be a fool and a bigot.

To compel, by law, some legally specified people to associate with
other legally specified people means that...

(1) the first group are not being
treated as ends in themselves, but are being forced into the role of
being the servants of others;

(2) the government -- which is
supposed to be impartial -- is favoring the second designated group at
the expense of the first; and

(3) the rights of individuals to
peacefully use their private property as they see fit are to be
subordinated to collective social purposes.

Ironically, (1)
imposes "involuntary servitude" -- exactly what the 13h Amendment made illegal. From Wikipedia: "Involuntary servitude is a United States legal
and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person's
will to benefit another, under some form of coercion other than the
worker's financial needs." To compel a business owner to serve someone
not of his free choosing meets the very definition of "involuntary
servitude." That may include compelling (say) a Christian baker, who
does not believe in "gay marriage," to provide pastries at a gay wedding
reception. If you think that is okay, then what would you say if a white
racist or -- even worse!!! -- a RICH CONSERVATIVE CHRISTIAN REPUBLICAN
(say, Rick Santorum or Sarah Palin) demanded, under the same "non-discrimination" laws, that a liberal,
Democratic, gay, female, African-American baker provide pastries for his or her daughter's
wedding?

Ironically too, in the name of "non-discrimination,"
(2) lets the government coercively discriminate on behalf of some people
over others in what otherwise would be private, voluntary relationships.

And (3) represents a
de facto nationalization of private businesses. Ownership, by
definition, means the right to freely and peacefully use and dispose of
property as the property holder sees fit. But under those two titles of
the Civil Rights Act, property is no longer to serve the individual ends
determined by its owner; instead, it is now to serve the
collective ends of his customers, by governmental decree. The
businessperson's private property rights are thus subordinated to collective ends, just
as the businessperson himself or herself is subjected to involuntary
servitude on behalf of customers.

I said above that "individual rights
prohibit one person from living at the expense of someone else by means
of force, fraud, or coercion." To use force and coercion in order to compel the
owners of private property to deal with or serve you, is a direct
violation of the owner's individual rights.

The fact that these violations of rights are rationalized because they are "for a good cause" is irrelevant. Just as the First Amendment protects
the free speech of individuals, even if we despise what they say, so
too does the rest of the Bill of Rights protect the freedom of business
owners to hire or serve whomever they wish, even if we despise their
specific hiring choices or service policies. The way to deal with bigots, in
either case, is through boycott and ridicule -- which is perfectly
within the rights of any protester.

But now, the law has been
stood on its head: It has become a tool to discriminate against and violate the individual
rights of people whom we don't like . . . perversely, in the name of "protecting rights" and
"non-discrimination."

As I write, Republicans such Governor Mike Pence of Indiana
are back-pedaling frantically, trying to rewrite Religious Freedom
Restoration Acts so as to prohibit private acts of "discrimination." But in doing so, they are caving in to those who are using such demands to destroy
what little is left of individual and property rights. And they are thus joining the mobs that treat
individuals as nationalized means to social ends, and no longer as moral
ends in themselves.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

I am delighted to announce that my second Dylan Hunter thriller, BAD DEEDS, just won the Conservative-Libertarian Fiction Alliance “Book of the Year 2014 Award.”

Given the quality of the finalists — books by prominent, bestselling
authors Larry Correia, Sarah A. Hoyt, and Mackey Chandler — I sincerely didn’t think my thriller stood a chance of winning. But thanks to Dylan’s devoted fans, the book won the final vote.

I want to express my deepest appreciation and thanks to all of you
who have made my stories and characters a part of your lives. I am
touched and grateful to you for your loyal support, and my special
appreciation goes to those of you who voted for BAD DEEDS. Thanks
to you, this award will bring the book and its unique vigilante hero a
lot more attention — and that is why I entered it in the competition in
the first place.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

Consider: By his own admission, he spent most of
his youth chasing girls, in a self-indulgent marijuana haze. In school,
he used his long-honed tactics of glib, manipulative, arrogant
"charm" to coast through, getting grades that, to this day, he has
refused to release to the public. He learned to sweet-talk his way
through life, also learning early on that white liberals were only too
eager to serve as slavish Enablers for a bright, handsome black kid who
made them feel noble about themselves.

Along the way, he
learned how to con people with narratives, with stories that embodied
the liberals' own fantasies and self-flattering aspirations. His biggest
narrative con was about himself: He concocted a black kid's Cinderella
story. Liberals just ate that up. With precious little effort on his own
part, they lined up to elevate him up each political rung of his career
ladder, pushing him toward the Narcissist's ultimate objective. He
helped mainly by seeking out positions that kept him in the public eye,
in front of cheering crowds. He became very, very adept in front of
crowds, practicing and refining his narratives till they were polished.
Though he could be a slick orator, he added a bit of informal, boyish,
countrified charm, strategically dropping "g's" at the ends of words -- you know, so
that he'd be "talkin' about changin' the country." He did that only
occasionally: Like most of his studied tactics, he could turn these on
and off like a faucet, as needed.

In each political position he
held along the way, he never actually bothered to do the job. He never
left behind any legislative footprints, any actual accomplishment. To
him, winning the political position was the accomplishment: It was an
end in itself -- an affirmation in his mind that he was loved, noticed,
and approved of by thousands. But it was never enough: He wanted that
universal affirmation from millions. So, he never stayed more than a few
years in any political job. They were only stepping stones to his
ultimate objective.

His big break was when throngs of white
liberals put the skinny kid from Chicago on stage at the Democratic
convention in 2004. He had just won his Senate race, and was now the new
black poster boy for white liberals. I saw that speech on TV. I saw how
the white liberal crowd responded and ate it up. Do you know something?
At that instant, I knew. And I began to work a Barack Obama character
into the storyline of the original Dylan Hunter novel that I was then
planning, as the first black man to run for the White House. Yes, I
knew even then that that was exactly what he was after, and where this
adoring crowd of liberals was propelling him.

At that time, his
only qualifications for the White House were a couple of faux
"memoirs" that advanced his phony, self-inflated biographical Narrative.
That. Was. IT. The rest of his resume? A Harvard law student whose
grades nobody ever talked about. A figurehead occupant of the position
of "Editor" of the "Harvard Law Review," where he never wrote and
contributed a single article himself. A Chicago community agitator. A
part-time, adjunct college instructor. An ambitious schmoozer and schemer who
ingratiated himself into the Chicago political machine. A state
representative who, backed by the Machine, used hardball tactics to get
elected -- then never did a damned thing in office except run for his
next position. Ditto as a one-term occupant of the U.S. Senate while he
immediately began running for the White House. Then, as a
candidate whose vacuous political speeches matched his resume: empty
odes to "hope" and "change," whatever those things were supposed to be.
Barack had learned that all you needed were moral-political narratives, built on vague
generalizations, and a personal biographical Narrative, built on the
univerally appealing Cinderella story. People would want to believe in
those stories; so they would grant any candidate embodying their mythology
a free pass from close, critical scrutiny. Nobody would bother to
notice that he was just an empty suit: They would fill that empty suit
themselves, with a Somebody of their own imagination and aspirations -- all to make them
feel good about themselves.

And so The Narcissist was elevated
to become President -- any narcissist's ultimate symbol of
self-congratulation and universal adulation. That was the goal. That was
the objective. He had reached it. Not for any specific things he could
actually accomplish; oh, sure, he had a leftist wish list of goals, and
he surrounded himself with other hard leftists. But the real pleasure
was the ability to wander the grand rooms of the White House; to be
saluted getting on and off Marine One and Air Force One; to be able to
jet anywhere on the taxpayers' tab; to ride around Washington in The
Beast, surrounded by a motorcade of Secret Service agents; to put his
feet up on the historic desk in the Oval Office (there are photos of him
doing this); but mostly to preen in public before nests of cameras and
thickets of microphones, soaking in the attention.

The actual
work of the job bores him. Actual work always bored him. He chafes at
hanging around in the White House. Sure, it's fun to wander into the
Situation Room and be surrounded by nervous generals and fawning
lackeys, and to be visited by anxious corporate cronies looking to kiss
his ring and get favors, and to chum around with all the Hollywood and
sports celebs lining up to entertain him in the evening. But the work is
BORING. He just can't wait to get out of the place and away from that
damned desk. So, at every occasion, he orders his staff to rev up The
Beast, Marine One, and then Air Force One, and get him off to some
exotic vacation spot, where he can hang out with his buds on some lush
green golf course.

The Consummate Narcissist. That's who
America elected -- twice. They still don't understand how they could
have been fooled so badly. But Barack understands. He's like another
handsome black celebrity narcissist of an earlier generation: O.J.
Simpson. Everyone loved The Juice, too, for exactly the same reasons.
Why, the two narcissists are virtually interchangeable.

In the end, Barack Obama is merely O.J. Simpson, with intellectual pretentions...and without the knife.

Saturday, November 16, 2013

I have been pondering
for several months how this classic childhood film presents a remarkable
metaphor for the failure of the liberal/progressive/statist view of
government. Consider the plot:

A group of humble individuals finds their lives
disrupted by frightening events beyond their control. Their entire world
is literally turned upside-down, and they find themselves in strange,
scary new circumstances. Now, they fear they are out of control of
their lives, and they are terribly anxious about their future.

One victim of the disaster seeks a return to her normal world. Another
believes he hasn't the courage to meet the fearful challenges ahead. A
third fears he lacks compassion and dedication. Yet another wonders
whether he has the brains to survive on his own.

From a bunch
of "little people," they are told about a wondrous far-off city, where a
great and powerful wizard will provide them everything they seek and
need -- merely by magical decree. Desperate, they embark upon a difficult
pilgrimage to that city of power and favors, which is topped by a
towering monument. There, acting like craven beggars, they visit and
supplicate themselves before the all-powerful wizard, pleading for his
aid. And he promises to fulfill their heart's desires.

But
there is a catch. The supplicants are told that first they must pay a
price for his help: They must agree to go out and do the wizard's
bidding, undergoing a host of ordeals on his behalf. The price of his help is servility. Intimidated, they
agree to do so. They perform the tasks he has ordered, suffering terribly, but mastering every challenge along the way.

At last, they return in triumph and insist that the wizard keep his end of
the bargain. But he balks and refuses, accusing them of insolence and improper
deference to one of his exalted station.

Suddenly, an innocent young
pup pulls back the curtain. The Great and Powerful Wizard is revealed to
be nothing more than a pathetic old con man: an incompetent fake, who
had achieved his power and status over the little people only through his
ability to spin glowing Narratives that promised them whatever they
wanted . . . and told them whatever they wanted to hear.

In the end, the adventurers come
to a shocking realization. Each discovers that, all along, he or she
already possessed all the brains, heart, and courage to live happy
lives, to produce whatever they needed, and to accomplish great things.
They learn that, all along, they could have stood self-reliantly on their own, solving their individual problems creatively and
productively, without paying endless tribute to, or accepting endless
abuse from, any fraudulent, conniving, self-appointed "wizards" living
parasitical lives of luxury in some distant center of power . . . .

All right, folks: Having now revealed "The Wizard of Oz" as a highly subversive Narrative
of individualism, one that brilliantly mocks and fatally skewers the "progressive" Narrative, I
wonder how long it will be before the Regime tries to ban it?

About Me

I'm a best-selling author and an award-winning journalist and editor. My first novel, "HUNTER," hit #4 on the Kindle Bestseller List and #1 in "Mysteries & Thrillers," as well as the Wall Street Journal's "Top Ten Fiction Ebook" list. It's available as a Kindle ebook and a trade paperback at Amazon.com; an audiobook edition is available through Amazon, Audible.com, and iTunes.

The sequel, "BAD DEEDS" won the CLFA "Book of the Year 2014 Award." WINNER TAKES ALL -- the third installment in my Dylan Hunter thriller series -- was released in late 2017 to rave reviews.

I've contributed to Reader's Digest, The Boston Herald, PJ Media, and many publications.

Be sure to visit my FICTION blog, "The Vigilante Author," at: www.bidinotto.com, where I discuss thrillers, publishing, and the hero of my bestselling thrillers, Dylan Hunter -- "the new face of justice."